Can you learn from video?
- Thread starter KPM
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Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
I am skeptical of the reception in most schools, if someone walked in and asked to start filming. Or, if they said yes, then I would be skeptical of the material they allowed you to film.
I am having difficulty believing that a sifu would allow that, without first becoming a serious face-to-face student and establishing a strong teacher-student relationship, and that can take years to do.
I don't run a school, but if someone approached me with such a request I would never agree. And it's not a matter of being "traditional" or secretive. It is a matter of pedagogy and understanding the building blocks of the system, and that I would need to help someone actually build those foundational skills. It simply doesn't work to just drop in.
If someone wants to learn from me, then I decide if I am willing to teach him or her. It is as much a commitment by me, as the other person. We need regular time together to train and do it right. And that needs to be worked into a busy schedule.
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
Sure, and pretty much all if us agree that supplemental video is a good tool if one has real training with real teachers and a solid foundation. Under those circumstances, there are certain things that can be learned from video, and in that context I have also learned things from video.^^^^ But Tony did indeed "learn from video." Again...the problem with sweeping statements!
But starting as a beginner, where the primary or only instruction is video, well no, I don't buy it. And neither do I buy it with occasional visits to a teacher, where the video is still the primary instructor. Trying to learn a system in that way leads to shallow mimickery, but most people doing it believe they are pretty good.
Vajramusti
Master Black Belt
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I did not learn from videos though good ones can sometimes confirm what you learn imo.
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
Sure, but you would not even know what you are looking at in a video if you had not received the good training and instruction that you had.
EvanWinther
Yellow Belt
Learning in person is better but
When I was learning hook kicks I was taught them and I practiced lots
I wanted to get a lot better at them and I found a great video on practice techniques which helped a lot
When I was learning hook kicks I was taught them and I practiced lots
I wanted to get a lot better at them and I found a great video on practice techniques which helped a lot
Well, the original question was "can you learn from video?", not "can you learn from just video exclusively?"
I actually started seriously studying from video during a period of a year or two where I was between dojos. I had earned my black belt in the Bujinkan, but had drifted away due to a combination of being burned out on the politics and feeling like I was missing something. I ran an ad in the local alt-weekly looking for training/sparring partners and ordered a selection of VHS videotapes, including a series by Renzo Gracie and Craig Kukuk. (This was before there were any qualified BJJ instructors in the Midwest.)
I managed to find a handful of training partners who had a few years experience in one art or another but who were between regular schools as I was. By working with them, I was able to learn a few BJJ basics well enough that I was able to pull them off in sparring. (It should be noted that none of my sparring partners were grappling specialists or physical beasts. They were mostly low-level boxers, karateka, or kung fu practitioners.)
After that I ended up enrolling in a school that taught an offshoot of Danzan Ryu jujutsu (Yudansha Fighting Systems) and got to grapple with people who actually had experience. I found my prior video training (and my Bujinkan experience) gave me a head start, but not a huge one. I did continue to study videos during this time and found it helpful. Having more class instruction and experience allowed me to get more benefit from the videos.
Eventually I ended up training BJJ with an actual instructor. Since then, video instruction has been a major supplement to my time spent in the dojo. I'd venture to say that a large percentage of the senior BJJ students I've trained with have made extensive use of studying both instructional videos and competition footage. I don't necessarily recommend it so much for beginning students, because they tend to be going through brain overload already with everything they're being taught in their regular classes and they don't need the distraction.
Vajramusti
Master Black Belt
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True.
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
Alright, fair enough tho I still point out that you had reasonable level of experience with martial arts, as a shodan in bujinkan. I often feel that prior experience in another system is as likely to be a liability when learning something new as it is an asset, but that can really depend a lot on the two systems in question.
Perhaps video instruction in a hands-on method like BJJ might have a greater success rate than one like wing chun that has a fairly abstract foundational approach that gets a lot of work before the hands-on training gets going. I still would never recommend it, but don't deny it can be helpful under certain circumstances.
I think my prior Bujinkan experience did help a lot, even though it was in a different art. It gave me a certain degree of body awareness and understanding of some of the basic principles behind joint locks. If I had tried learning from the same videos back when I first started martial arts, I don't think I would have managed to learn anything of use. (At least not from those particular videos, since they just demonstrated individual techniques without explaining context and principles.)
BJJ has an advantage in that the most important criteria is "does it work", not "does it work while following the specific form or philosophy dictated by a particular style."
When I started studying BJJ through video, I learned a basic arm bar from guard at a crude level and was able to make it work in sparring against some hobbyist martial artists who had no grappling background.
When I started training in YDS, I was sparring with people who knew how to grapple and I had to refine the arm bar to make it work on them. Live instruction, videos, and sparring all helped me to make that refinement.
When I started training BJJ, I was sparring people who understood armbars at a higher level and I had to refine the same technique further.
In my current situation, I get to spar everybody from complete novices to black belt judoka to wrestlers to professional fighters who know all the same moves I know. If I want to make my arm bar (or any other technique) work against those higher-level opponents, I have to be much more refined in how I apply the technique, when I apply the technique, how I set it up, and how I combine it with other techniques. I've been shown a lot of different ways to apply that same arm bar by different instructors (both in person and on video). I take what I've been shown and put in the experimental mat time to discover what works for me (and what works for other people against me). That personal research time on the mat is what makes it all functional.
I'm withholding commentary on the WC until I get more experience so I'm not spouting misinformation. Maybe in another year or so I'll have something worthwhile to offer on the subject.
Sometime video clips can help you to look at some areas that you may not paid enough attention before. For example, you may have trained the wrestling "arm drag", but have you train how to counter an arm drag? A video clip can help you to find out your own weakness.
And again, no one in this thread has proposed that.
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
Yes, you did:
In my opinion....yes!
...
An absolute newbie that has done nothing martial arts related in the past is likely to have more trouble, but as long as he or she has any physical talent at all they should be able to benefit.
...
Granted, nothing beats hands on instruction! At some point the person learning from DVD will have to seek out an instructor for some quality training. But his or her feet should already be firmly on the path compared to someone with no previous exposure at all.
...
If you are interested in a specific martial art but don't have an instructor in your area..
...
... So grab a friend that is also interested and start working through the instruction on the DVD a little at a time. And have fun! That's the important part!
There is more where it's implied, but I isolated the blatant sections.
Hyoho
2nd Black Belt
So show us some of your videos so we can see the living proof^^^ But here's the rub Steve. I can post and say that it IS possible to learn from video. I'm living proof. But obviously that is NOT to say that ANYONE can learn from video. But someone cannot post and say "No, I do not believe you can learn martial arts from video" with any kind of validity because several people have posted on this thread pointing out how it is indeed possible to learn from video. This is the problem with sweeping statements.
Hyoho
2nd Black Belt
Money, recognition, fame, narcissism?In my opinion....yes!
First, why would so many instructors put out nice instructional DVDs for the general public if they didn't think people could learn from them? Why would people put out youtube videos with detailed explanations if they didn't think people would learn from them?
anerlich
Brown Belt
Nothing wrong with money. All but some ascended masters and breatharians have to eat.
Some people actually like to share knowledge.
I'd imagine some non-video instructors also seek money, recognition, and fame, and some are narcissists, as well. The medium is but a multiplier of what the intentions were.
Some people actually like to share knowledge.
I'd imagine some non-video instructors also seek money, recognition, and fame, and some are narcissists, as well. The medium is but a multiplier of what the intentions were.
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
Because a sucker is born every minute.
I am on record on this forum saying I think video training is not a good idea for beginners to try to learn an art.
That said, most of my training in the past oh, five years has been by video. I am too far from my instructors to get regular instruction in any format. I have a great connection with my instructors and get video copies of their seminars and sometimes private lessons with other instructors. I also use instructional videos of associated arts to aid in development of my fighting skills. I can say without question that I am a better more technical fighter now than I was five years ago, and have expanded my fighting "game" in the past two years with double stick fighting almost solely based on video.
I have a goal of doing a couple of staff fights 10 months from now, and while I have some basic training with staff it is beginner level at best. I have something like 2 hours of in person staff training beyond one kenpo kata that I cannot call decent staff training. The rest of my exposure is video and will continue to be video.
I think video is a very useful tool for some practitioners once they have their fundamentals.
Lamont
That said, most of my training in the past oh, five years has been by video. I am too far from my instructors to get regular instruction in any format. I have a great connection with my instructors and get video copies of their seminars and sometimes private lessons with other instructors. I also use instructional videos of associated arts to aid in development of my fighting skills. I can say without question that I am a better more technical fighter now than I was five years ago, and have expanded my fighting "game" in the past two years with double stick fighting almost solely based on video.
I have a goal of doing a couple of staff fights 10 months from now, and while I have some basic training with staff it is beginner level at best. I have something like 2 hours of in person staff training beyond one kenpo kata that I cannot call decent staff training. The rest of my exposure is video and will continue to be video.
I think video is a very useful tool for some practitioners once they have their fundamentals.
Lamont
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